During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, vibrant port cities became
home to thousands of Africans in transit. Free and enslaved blacks alike
crafted the necessary materials to support transoceanic commerce and
labored as stevedores, carters, sex workers, and boarding-house keepers.
Even though Africans continued to be exchanged as chattel, urban
frontiers allowed a number of enslaved blacks to negotiate the right to
hire out their own time, often greatly enhancing their autonomy within
the Atlantic commercial system.
In The Black Urban Atlantic in the Age of the Slave Trade, eleven
original essays by leading scholars from the United States, Europe, and
Latin America chronicle the black experience in Atlantic ports,
providing a rich and diverse portrait of the ways in which Africans
experienced urban life during the era of plantation slavery. Describing
life in Portugal, Brazil, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Africa, this volume
illuminates the historical identity, agency, and autonomy of the African
experience as well as the crucial role Atlantic cities played in the
formation of diasporic cultures. By shifting focus away from
plantations, this volume poses new questions about the nature of slavery
in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, illustrating early modern
urban spaces as multiethnic sites of social connectivity, cultural
incubation, and political negotiation.
Contributors: Trevor Burnard, Mariza de Carvalho Soares, Matt D.
Childs, Kevin Dawson, Roquinaldo Ferreira, David Geggus, Jane Landers,
Robin Law, David Northrup, João José Reis, James H. Sweet, Nicole von
Germeten.
